PROGRAM TITLE:  	Earth Observation System Data and 
Information System (EOSDIS)
ACTIVITY STREAMS: 	Earth Observations System (EOS) Program
SCIENCE ELEMENT:	Data and Information Management

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

SCIENTIFIC MERIT:   The Earth Observation System Data and 
Information System (EOSDIS) is NASA's contribution to the national 
interagency Global Change Data and Information System (GCDIS) 
being planned and developed for the archive and distribution of data 
and information related to Earth and how it is changing.   The GCDIS 
effort is only a part of the international global change data and 
information infrastructure.  EOSDIS is itself being developed as a 
distributed system, in response to the requirements of global change 
researchers and earth system scientists who have been part of the 
planning of the EOSDIS from the time  it was conceived.  Success of 
the USGCRP will depend upon open access for the scientists to the full 
suite of data and information needed for their research.

The USGCRP is fundamental to meeting the urgent need for 
understanding the global environment and why it is changing.  
NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program, and within it the Earth 
Observing System (EOS), is a major part of this research effort.  The 
EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) is central to both the EOS 
mission and to NASA's overall contribution to global change research.  

The goal of the EOSDIS program is to make global change data and 
information easily available to global change researchers and other 
users.  Like all data and computing capabilities, EOSDIS is not an end 
in itself but a means to facilitate the research.  As such, the key to 
success for EOSDIS and the policy framework which accompanies it is 
to respond to the needs of the research community and to encourage 
cooperation.  Wherever possible, EOSDIS must remove barriers to the 
full use of EOS and non-EOS data.  The architecture of EOSDIS is open 
and distributed, facilitating interaction with similar data systems of 
other agencies and countries.  The EOS data policy is designed to 
provide for and encourage the broadest possible sharing of data.  
EOSDIS data management principles are in harmony with the 
interagency Committee on Earth and Environmental Sciences (CEES) 
set of data management principles.  NASA's EOSDIS activities 
concentrate on improved availability and use of existing data sets 
within the initial years, in advance of  receipt of larger capabilities 
required to handle data flow from the full suite of EOS instruments.  

Overall activities are coordinated in the US by the CEES 
Subcommittee on Global Change Research's (SGCR's) Working Group 1, 
Observations and Data Management.  (Formerly this coordination was 
through the ad hoc Interagency Working Group on Data Management 
for Global Change, or IWGDMGC.)  Internationally, the International 
Coordination Working Group for the International Earth Observing 
System has designated the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites 
- Working Group on Data (CEOS-WGD) as it's data and information 
technical and policy arm. 

STAKEHOLDERS:  The Program is vital to scientists doing global 
change research.  It is coordinated with other federal agency global 
change data and information systems through the CEES SGCR, and 
with NASA's international partners through the CEOS-WGD.

POLICY RELEVANCE:	Archives and distributes information for all 
CEES USGCRP Science Priorities.

PROGRAM CONTACT:	Dixon M. Butler, Director
				Operations, Data and Information Systems 
				Division
				Office of Mission to Planet Earth, Code YD
				Washington, DC 20546
				tel: 202-358-0256
				fax: 202-358-2770
				Email: D.BUTLER/Omnet